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Source: https://ctmirror.org/category/ct-viewpoints/ambassador-meron-reuben/
Stop Comparing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to the Black Lives Matter Movement
(Connecticut Mirror) Amb. Meron Reuben - Assuming that global conflicts can be navigated and understood via American history and the present tensions in American society concerning race is total nonsense. The Jewish people have been victims of thousands of years of displacement, expulsion and discrimination, and in the last century, we have faced war and terrorism in backlash to our indigenous right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland. As someone who grew up in South Africa, I can proudly report that Israel is definitely not an apartheid society. Israeli Arabs are an enmeshed part of Israeli society, including the myriad who serve in the Israel Defense Forces and work as doctors, lawyers, scholars, ambassadors, and politicians. In the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, gender-based violence and discrimination against the LGBTQ community and minorities are prevalent. There is widespread detention without charge or trial by the Palestinian Authority, while in Gaza, military courts rule the day and capital punishment is prevalent. Hamas violently took over Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, murdering hundreds of Palestinians in their quest for power. U.S. tax dollars given to Israel must be used to purchase goods from the U.S., keeping many Americans employed. The Palestinian Authority used U.S. tax dollars to make payments to the families of persons imprisoned for acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens, including to the families of suicide bombers. The Palestinian people are not the enemy of Israel; Hamas is. Israel is not the barrier to peace; Hamas extremism and terrorism are. It is inappropriate and tone-deaf to use the Black Lives Matter movement to give credence to anti-Israel rhetoric. Israel is a democratic, multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-cultural society with every right to defend its sovereignty and civilians against Jihadi terrorists. The writer is the Consul General of Israel to New England.